Today I had a ton of work to do. To be fair, I did accomplish some of it. I finished half of my 2.671 homework, half of 2.008, and half of 2.004. Left is 7.012 studying, the second halves to all of those other things, and poetry. These are things I could have worked on tonight. Instead?

Instead I listened to the new Muse album (go buy it now) and found a solo in one of the songs ("I Belong to You") that I really liked, so I sat down with some paper, a pen, and my clarinet. A while later I had transcribed it. Technically it's a bass clarinet solo, but with an octave shift and some creativity when notes dip below my playable range, I got it to sound pretty good. I printed some staff paper and actually wrote it out with ties, accents, and other notation so it'd be easier to read and play. Then, Mason '10 busted out the Sibelius and wrote it all out "officially," resulting in a nice piece of sheet music.

I looked around on YouTube to see if anybody else had covered this on clarinet and, sure enough, somebody had.

Eh, decent, but I knew I could do better, so after some misadventures with my Macbook's built-in mic (note, don't use for instrument recording) I made a video of myself playing my little transcription. Now, for your enjoyment, a video of me playing the clarinet solo from Muse's new song "I Belong to You," along with the sheet music.

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

Excellent, I didn't know it had come out! 1st...

Posted by: bluewolf482 on September 19, 2009

Very cool... Great song!

Posted by: 0 on September 19, 2009

Yeah! Muse is awesome

Posted by: 0 on September 20, 2009

"Resistance"= an amazing song. I should sit down and play it on the piano one of these days...

Posted by: makesense on September 20, 2009

Wow, you play well

As far as I can tell, anyway. I want to learn an instrument one of these days.

Posted by: Piper '12 on September 20, 2009

That album is great. I got distracted listening to that (among other music) while doing 7.012 pset, which made it take much longer than it should have.

Posted by: Albert '13 on September 20, 2009

I'm deeply impressed with how multi-talented American college students can be.

Posted by: 0 on September 20, 2009

Absolutely beautiful! I have been listening to it all day as I write my articles for school.

Posted by: Michael on September 20, 2009

awesome!! :D

Posted by: leilani on September 20, 2009

Haha, nice. Hopefully you finished your work on time.

Posted by: Steph on September 21, 2009

Awesome song!

BTW I took the TOEFL on August 1st and I listed MIT for score reporting, but the scores haven't yet appeared in MyMIT. Is that normal?

Posted by: Luka ('14?) on September 21, 2009

Piece of cake. I heard in Caltech there's a guy who plays the clarinet with his feet. Can you do that?

Posted by: Clariwhat on September 21, 2009

@Clariwhat
yes.

Posted by: Snively on September 21, 2009

I demand a followup video of you playing that solo with your feet...while shooting a pistol and writing with a livescribe pen! (Just kidding about that second part, that might get a little dangerous.) Nice playing, btw.

Posted by: Mikey on September 21, 2009

Hi!
I am in second year of Computer Engineering and I just wanted to know what all things do I need to do (I know all about the transfer application)so that I can enroll myself as a transfer student given that I have got 800 in each of my SAT subject tests.I mean what other activities should I be good at?

Posted by: 0 on September 21, 2009

Hi!
I am in second year of Computer Engineering and I just wanted to know what all things do I need to do (I know all about the transfer application)so that I can enroll myself as a transfer student given that I have got 800 in each of my SAT subject tests.I mean what other activities should I be good at?

Posted by: ak on September 21, 2009

@ak: I think only those can apply as transfer who have completed freshman year, not after sophomore, and since u r in second year already... i'm not sure you can transfer, but you might want to contact the admissions staff through e-mail.

Posted by: Shiv on September 22, 2009

Didn't know you played clarinet, Sniv!

Guy clarinets are where it is at? Did you ever do marching band in high school? What about like opportunities to continue music at MIT?

-Cody

Posted by: Cody Dean ('14 hopeful) on September 22, 2009

since you posted this, i've listened to muse's album straight through ~6 or so times while writing my 21h.466 paper last night (11.30 pm -> 6 am) and the 9.01 pset tonight. it is really good study music.

btw good job on the clarinet! didn't know you were so musical.

Posted by: oasis '11 on September 23, 2009

That was awesome!
That was awesome!
<3 Muse. =D

Posted by: Lydia AK on September 24, 2009

Snively that was so amazing!

Posted by: Lauren on September 27, 2009

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